I build platform infrastructure that ships to hardware I don’t control.
I'm Marvin Kweyu, a platform and backend engineer building systems that operate beyond the reach of direct intervention. From infrastructure appliances and distributed control planes to research-driven technology, I design software that remains reliable in the environments where it matters most.
I work at the platform layer.
I'm a senior platform and backend engineer. For 6 years I’ve built and shipped distributed systems - hypervisor-agnostic IaaS marketplaces, immutable Linux appliances, licensing platforms, and event-driven integrations - across multiple regions and infrastructure providers.
My work is the layer products take for granted: the part that has to stay reliable, observable, and operable once it’s deployed to environments I’ll never log into. NavEngine ships to hardware owned by the operators who run it. That constraint shapes every decision - immutability as a hard guarantee, observability as the primary interface, and failure modes the operator can reason about without me on the call.
I care more about reliability and developer experience than technology fashion.
Learn More About MePragmatic architecture
Start simple. Add complexity only when the deployment actually demands it.
Observability First
For systems you can’t SSH into, observability isn’t a feature - it’s the interface between the system and the people running it.
Design for The Constraint
Engineering for your most constrained environment is usually just good engineering for every other one.
Global Impact
Deploying solutions across East Africa and beyond, transforming how communities interact with technology.
Products & Platforms
NavEngine
An immutable infrastructure appliance built on Flatcar Linux, deployed to hardware across 58 organisations in Kenya, South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana. Provisioned via Butane/Ignition for both cloud-connected and air-gapped environments, with license-aware VM lifecycle enforcement and offline license validation that survives connectivity gaps.
Role: Lead Engineer
Boma Yangu
A digital housing platform enabling users to save, apply and manage access to affordable housing.
Role: Software Engineer
Mnara
A high-security geospatial surveillance and monitoring platform with real-time computer vision capabilities.
Role: Lead Engineer
Field Notes
One Bucket, Three Jobs
The infrastructure you plan and the infrastructure you end up with are rarely the same thing.
Research and Build Don't Compose
What it looks like to run ecological models and ship licensed software in the same week - and what each discipline takes from the other.
CI/CD for Licensed Software You Don't Host
Three weeks from shipping NavEngine v4. No SSH access. No deployment target. Here's how updates reach machines behind a customer's firewall.
Let's Build Something Impactful Together
Whether you're looking to collaborate on research, need engineering expertise, or just want to connect - I'd love to hear from you.